Scientists prevent signs of aging in zebrafish by targeting the gut
Sunday, May 21, 2023 - 14:33
in Biology & Nature
When it comes to slowing aging in humans, telomeres have long been a tempting target. These complex, repetitive sequences of DNA that cap the ends of chromosomes tick away the years by shortening each time a cell divides, eventually causing the cell to die. The jury’s still out about whether reversing this shortening could be a molecular fountain of youth, but a new study in zebrafish is encouraging. When researchers lengthened telomeres in the gut cells of these tiny, translucent fish, they reversed signs of aging in the entire organism. “It’s a really good paper,” says Ronald DePinho, a cancer biologist at the MD Anderson Cancer Center who studies telomeres and aging. The authors of the study, published this month in ...